IC market heading for a decline this year

Top jobs

2019 may turn out worse than anticipated for the semiconductor industry. After a bad start across all IC segments, market researchers expected (link in Dutch) all but the memory markets to rebound in the second half of the year and end up at or near break-even. While the rebound is still likely to happen, the timing is unsure and the ongoing slowdown turned out to be worse than estimated – the three-month moving average in April plunged 24 percent from the peak last October. Accordingly, IDC and Gartner now project a 7 percent decline in 2019. IC Insights is even less optimistic, predicting a 13 percent drop.

Since the early 80s, the IC market never declined more than three quarters in a row. IC Insights’ expectations are high for a rebound in IC market growth beginning in Q3 2019.